Tiger Woods mouthed the right words on Tuesday as he prepared to mount a comeback from yet another setback to his left knee.
“Well, same as always,” he said when asked what his expectations were this week at The Players Championship. “Try and win the event.”
The words weren’t said with any sort of Churchillian conviction.
It was less a stirring oratory about fighting them on the beaches (of Jacksonville) and more a classic case of rote Tigerspeak; what he falls back on when the truth’s either too complicated or too close to the bone.
Apparently his outward confidence worked on the oddsmakers: Not usually a naïve bunch, they’ve installed Woods as the favorite. But I’m not sure there’s been another tournament in his career in which he’s been less of a favorite than he is at TPC Sawgrass this week.
First, there’s his underwhelming record at golf‘s richest tournament. Woods has played this event 13 times and won only once, with four top-10 finishes.
Even during his dominating years, he didn’t do well at The Players, in part because he’s never had much affinity for Pete Dye’s quirky layout and in part because when the tournament was played in March his thoughts already had turned to Augusta.
But past struggles aren’t all that is counting against Woods this week.
It’s hard to see him snapping the longest winless streak of his career — it’s been 18 months since his last win, pre-scandal, at the Australian Masters — because he’s so undercooked.
Woods, who’s been wearing a protective boot, only hit balls on Monday for the first time since injuring his knee and Achilles’ tendon while hitting a shot from pine straw during the third round at the Masters. He hadn’t even seen his swing coach, Sean Foley — who also lives in Orlando — since the Masters.
Woods played nine holes at Sawgrass on Tuesday and will play another nine on Wednesday.
That’s hardly ideal preparation.
Consider, too, that the last time Woods arrived at a tournament underprepared — while he was in the midst of finalizing his divorce last August — he shot 18 over par at the Bridgestone Invitational, the worst finish of his career.
Then there’s the danger that either the knee or the Achilles’ tendon injuries haven’t fully healed, or that he may aggravate them. Last year, he had to withdraw in the final round at The Players with a neck injury.
“We’ll see how this week progresses,” he said. “If it flares up like it did at Augusta, then it flares up, but hopefully it doesn’t.”
In an ideal world, he’d probably skip this tournament, just as he did another staple on his calendar, last week’s Wells Fargo Championship.
But Woods knows he doesn’t have a choice. He needs to play more tournament golf. It’s May, and he’s played only 20 stroke-play rounds this year.
The U.S. Open at storied Congressional Country Club — a course he’s won on — is next month, and Woods likes his chances for a 15th major there.
But he needs to feel the heat of the battle.
“The whole idea is that I peak four times a year, and I’m trying to get ready for Congressional and I need some playing time,” he admitted. “I missed playing last week at a golf course I truly love playing. I really want to get out there and play and compete.
“This is a big event, and I want to be here and play.”
Woods, who betrayed little of the injury to his knee at Augusta until the final hole of the tournament, admitted he carried the injury into Sunday, where he shot a breathtaking front-nine 31 before fading on the inward nine, ultimately tying for fourth.
“It didn’t feel good on Sunday (at the Masters), that was tough,” he said. “I played through it, but yeah, it was one of those things.
“I was in the midst of playing and competing and had to power through it, so I did it.”
He also spoke of the exasperation he’s felt in not being able to win for so long.
“I miss winning,” he said. “I’ve gone through periods like this in my entire career, yes. There were some down times, but this one has lasted longer than I would like to expect.”
He said he’s been able to cope with the failure because he’s fallen back on a previous drought — when he rebuilt his swing after the record-breaking victory at the 1997 Masters.
“The period I went through in ’97 through ’99 was brutal because I had never gone through a stretch like that, ever,” he said. “I made changes with Butch (Harmon, his former coach) for the very first time back in ’95, but I still won junior events, amateur events.
“But I went through a period there where I won one tournament in two years.
“If I had never gone through (that), then this period would have been just brutal.”
Not, of course, that it hasn’t been brutal anyway.
